The Many Adventures of Mello and Matt
by RainbowSerenade
Summary: "...and for a moment, he fancied himself the Beast, locking Belle inside of his castle by his mere existence, by the fact that he had taken over his apartment like an overgrown plant, his roots encroaching everything..." A collection of MelloMatt one-shots, because Rude Awakening wasn't enough. By Apollo.
1. Beauty and the Beast

Mello had seen it all.

He liked to think that while most people on earth saw the world through rose-colored glasses, being the head of the Yakuza for a period of time had taken those glasses and crunched them without mercy under the heel of his boot, opening his eyes to the cruelties of the world and blinding him at the same time. He had seen kidnappings, beatings, rapes, murders, none of which were in a particular order, but all of which arranged themselves in his mind like haphazard puzzle pieces, overlapping and combining behind his vision as if he was watching a multitude of movies on one screen through a kaleidoscope of color. He had seen bloodshed, torn muscles, dismembered limbs, bullet-ridden bodies, the way a mother's face contorts into a scream of agony when her child went limp in her arms. He had seen even vacancies, the way life extinguished slowly from behind someone's eyes, leaving their irises as nothing more than empty mirrors, reflecting up the barrel of his gun, onto his scarred face, the gruesome images burned into his retinas, through them, branded into his brain until the frequent nightmares shook him from his uneasy slumber and sent him fighting the urge to crawl into Matt's bed.

But he had never seen anything like this before.

Plastic bowls of every size and color dotted the counter in a pattern like a zigzagging rainbow. Some were filled with clear liquids while others were holding rock-like balls of dough, flour dusting the rims of each. The white powder sprinkled everything in the room, from the counters covered and sticky with substances he wasn't even sure of anymore down to the floor, the lackluster linoleum spotted with a culmination of what rested in the main bowl stuck to the counter by a glob of melted chocolate, and while Mello didn't know exactly what it was anymore, he knew that it was wet, thick, and a color it probably shouldn't have been.

The kitchen was, to use Matt's vernacular for a moment, a hot-ass mess.

But Matt either didn't notice or didn't mind, probably a strange combination of both that met in the middle of the gray. He hummed and shut the refrigerator door with his hip, a bottle of vanilla extract in one hand and a new DS in the other. He clicked, the _tickity-tack_ ever so annoying, the buttons with an expert thumb as he crossed the kitchen to the counter, kicking up clouds of flour on the way. He paid it no mind as it settled on the tops of his boots, and he unscrewed the cap to the small bottle with a thumb and a forefinger, the black fabric coated in white, never looking away from the screen.

But as Matt poured a whimsical amount into the bowl, Mello narrowed his eyes from the doorway. It was his biggest pet peeve. Not the humming, not the peppy Japanese pop music blaring from the system, not even the _tickity-tack_ of the buttons, though all of them grated on his nerves. It was Matt's inability to keep a cigarette out of his mouth for five seconds. Under normal circumstances, Mello didn't care either way. But it was moments like this which happened all too often, when Matt was making food with a cigarette dangling from between his lips, the blazing cherry emitting taunting smoke, that Mello had a mind to rip the cigarette out of his mouth for his insolence.

And so he did.

Mello crushed the cigarette in between his thumb and forefinger, watching as Matt looked over, face calm, always too damn calm. Mello followed his eyes to the smoking end and flicked the cigarette into the sink, then turned on the water to put it out. "You know I hate it when you smoke in the kitchen."

He crossed his arms and turned his gaze back to Matt, face unchanging, before quirking a brow as Matt shut the game system, the annoying pop music coming to a succinct halt, and tucked it into the back of his pants. Then he did the worst thing he could have ever hoped to do in that situation.

He blew a plume of withheld smoke into Mello's face.

Kill him. Mello was going to kill him.

He growled and grabbed the other by his shirt, the stripes bunched into zigzags in his fists, and pressed him against the counter. Matt slipped against the liquid on the floor and stumbled back into the counter, the slightest of winces arising from him, but with it came Mello's victory. The sound of weakness had given him away, and with Mello's fists clenching his shirt, with his glare hard and sharp, boring into his eyes, the most Matt could do was raise his hands and give a meek, defeated, "Okay, okay."

Mello let him go, eyeing the wrinkled print of his shirt for just a moment before he turned back to the messy countertop. Matt had a way to push his buttons like no one else, _tickity-tack_, _tickity-tack_, until he snapped. He was the only person who could get him so hot, so fuming, as if he was just another game in his system, trying so hard to get that elusive high score, but always having to back down when Mello almost knocked his teeth out. Maybe that was why he picked at him in a perpetual manner. Maybe he liked the challenge.

Did Mello already feel bad about losing his temper and pushing him into a counter? Sure. Was Matt asking for it? Hell yeah. He blew smoke in his face. He was asking for it, surely, and yet...

Mello sighed and rubbed his head, biting back the odd feeling rising up in his stomach, that strange taste of regret, flavored with unspoken apology. "What are you making, anyway?"

Matt smirked at that, the silent acceptance, and tugged at his shirt to fix it before cocking his head at a piece of paper barely visible on the counter, covered in goo and powder, the edges deteriorating under liquid. "Homemade chocolate cookies. Wanna help?"

Mello surveyed the kitchen once more. "Not particularly."

"It'll make my bruised spinal cord feel better," Matt teased as he pushed himself off of the counter. He brushed flour off of the recipe and squinted down at it, the ghost of a smile on his face, knowing he had hit Mello's hidden sympathies, knowing he had won, just once, a small victory in their little game. "It'll be easy. I'll even do the baking. You can just read off what I need."

"Because you're doing a great job so far." Mello grumbled as he dared to venture into the kitchen. "Looks like a bomb went off in here."

"What was that?" Matt looked over his shoulder, playing stern. Mello only stared back, eyebrow cocked, and repeated himself louder, unimpressed and unafraid. Matt only rolled his eyes, an overdramatic gesture, and held the paper out to him. Mello took it and skimmed the list of ingredients, already grimacing at the feeling of sticky liquid staining his gloves.

"Items not marked off in red still need to be added."

"Nothing is marked off in red."

"Shit." Matt peeked over the edge of the paper in disbelief, and for a moment, Mello wasn't sure if he had forgotten to make marks or had even had a pen to begin with. He shook his head and let Matt skim it, appraise it. Matt then looked up to the ceiling as if he had made red marks on the plaster instead and it had all been one big misunderstanding, but when he found nothing but overhead lights, he pointed to a spot in the middle and claimed he only needed to add eggs. "I'm making a huge batch, though, so just multiply everything by three. You can math, right?"

Was that even English?

"Sure." Mello stood still in the middle of the kitchen, unwilling to get himself any messier than he needed to. The soles of his shoes were enough for him. Matt, however, tromped across the kitchen without a care and threw open the door to the refrigerator, then leaned in.

"How many eggs do I need?"

After glancing at the recipe, Mello performed the mental math that Matt deemed him incapable of doing, and answered, "You need six eggs."

Suddenly, a goofy grin broke across Matt's face, a rare occurrence, but with his eyes alight and dimples in his cheeks, he looked like a child, as if they were both getting into mischief at Wammy's House again. With his hands full of eggs, somehow balancing three in each with stretched fingers, he replied in a sing-song tone. "That's too expensive."

Mello's brow furrowed hard in confusion. "What?"

Just as quickly as the elated look appeared, it vanished, and Matt was left with a deadpan expression. He straightened and kicked the door shut, eyes never leaving Mello's. "Beauty and the Beast? A Little Town?"

Before he could stop himself, that familiar anger was boiling up inside of Mello. He clenched the paper in his hands, grip tight, eyes hard, his lip in a thin line in an attempt to stop venom from spewing with his words, but to no avail. "You're spitting words at me again. Stop it."

Matt rolled his eyes and moved past him, almost slipping and sliding on the floor. He cracked eggs against the side of the bowl, the liquid inside almost having a film across the top from sitting, eyes more focused on the eggs plopping into the mixture than anything else. "It's a movie, Mel. Beauty and the Beast. A Little Town is a song. And there's a part that goes, 'I need six eggs. That's too expensive.' It's the part where Belle is walking through the market area, and you're getting an animated view of France. Have you never seen Beauty and the Beast?"

Mello was silent for a moment, but then he quirked a brow. "Did you make a list of ingredients just to make a reference to an animated woman singing in a French marketplace?"

"Pfft. No."

Maybe.

Mello couldn't care less as he watched Matt stir the batter. If he was willing to make huge batches of chocolate cookies every time he wanted to reference a line in a song, Mello would quote the whole damn movie. But that started with seeing it. He leaned against the refrigerator and watched as Matt worked the liquid into the dry ingredients in another bowl, then combined them to make what looked more like cake batter than cookie mix.

"No, I've never seen Beauty and the Beast."

"Ha, well, I know what we're doing while the cookies bake." Matt poured the rich brown mixture into a baking pan and slid it into the preheated oven. "It'll pass the time while the cake bakes anyway."

"I thought you were making cookies."

But before Mello had a chance to interrogate him, Matt waved his hand and walked into the living room. Mello opened the oven and peeked inside, stared at the chunks in the liquid batter, before shutting it and eyeing the recipe once more. It was definitely for cookies. How Matt had managed to make thick, chunky liquid cake batter was beyond him. Then again, Matt wasn't a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was Mello, so as long as the food was edible, he wasn't complaining.

"How long does it need to cook for?" Mello called into the other room. For a few long moments, all he could hear was the irritating cacophony of pop music and _tickity-tack_, _tickity-tack_. He huffed and grit his teeth. "Matt!"

"It needs to _bake_ until the timer goes off. So that can be your job. Listen for the timer." Matt didn't shut his game to answer, attention distracted, but he still managed to school Mello with his cooking vocabulary. Mello scoffed, and with a haughty, 'Well, _excuse_ me,' vacated the kitchen and entered the living room. Matt sprawled out on the couch, head resting against the arm rest, one leg resting atop the opposing one. His other leg dangled above the ground, swinging to the rhythm of the music. Legs slightly spread, he paid Mello no mind as he continued the play whatever it was he was playing. Mello watched him, took him in, eyes running down his long leg before he shook his head and walked over, then knocked his leg off of the arm rest, making room for himself. Matt smirked and shut his game, sat up, and leaned back into the couch.

"Ready?"

"To watch an animated movie?" Mello quirked a brow and leaned back into the cushions. "I was born ready. You know that."

Matt elbowed him playfully and turned the movie on. Mello tried to pay as much attention as a grown Mafioso could to singing and dancing cutlery, but Matt ended up stealing his attention for the bulk of the film. Not because his game system was open on his lap, not because he himself wasn't paying much attention to the movie past the opening song, not even because he was pressing those damn buttons incessantly, _tickity-tack_, _tickity-tack_. It was because of how close he had gotten without even realizing it. Somehow throughout the first half of the film, Matt had managed to practically snuggle up into Mello's side, eyes down on his game screen, until his head finally came to rest on Mello's shoulder, which was falling asleep under the weight of his head, his arm outstretched over the back of the couch.

He heard all of the songs, the dialogue, even caught parts of the movie out of the reflection of Matt's goggles. But more than anything, he watched him out of the corner of his eye, that old feeling of regret bubbling up inside of him as he heard the lead characters bickering on the screen, and for a moment, he fancied himself the Beast, locking Belle inside of his castle by his mere existence, by the fact that he crashed on his couch in his hour of need, had taken over his apartment like an overgrown plant, his roots encroaching everything, tying everything down where he needed it to be, and shoving people into counters when they angered him.

For a few long moments, he was so overwhelmed that he almost didn't hear the obnoxious beeping ringing in his ears, but when it finally became too much to ignore, it was Matt who gasped and shut his game, looked up to Mello, so close that he could feel Mello's breath, shallow as he wrestled with his feelings. Mello stopped breathing all together with Matt so close, their lips almost touching, frozen in place, in time, as if everything would shatter around their ears if he took a step, a breath.

"I smell burning." Matt pulled away and frowned, eyebrows knitted, his game system resting on his knee. "Mel, you were supposed to listen for the timer! Shit, how long has it been going off?"

Mello inhaled sharply, as if the few moments of oxygen deprivation had cost him hours of breathing instead of seconds, and his emotions went haywire inside of him. Anger and surprise mixed uneasily in his stomach, touched by the rough fingers of embarrassment, embarrassment for looking, no, _gazing_ at Matt, for feeling his stomach go into knots at the proximity of his lips, for feeling anything at all. Without time to catch his breath, he sat up abruptly, defensive.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? You're the one who wanted to bake whatever the fuck that monstrosity in the oven right now is anyway. Maybe you should have listened more."

"I did listen." Matt leaned back, already getting ready to dodge if he needed to. "By the time I heard it over the movie, it went off like six times."

"Well, blame the fucking dancing candlestick, not me." Mello narrowed his eyes. "I thought the beeping was your stupid game."

"It isn't a stupid game, and don't take your pissy attitude out on Lumiere."

Mello inhaled, sharp and irritated, bested by an animated candlestick in the midst of an argument. Fingers twitching and ready to snap a neck, Mello settled for the impulse of smacking the DS out of Matt's hand and pushing himself off of the couch.

Matt gasped and jumped out when his DS skidded against the floor and hit the wall. "You son of a bitch! I just bought that for Christmas."

Mello had been in the process of walking away, but Matt was a like a fisherman in these kind of situations. He always found a way, a verbal lure, accidental or not, to throw at Mello and reel him back in, and before Mello knew it, he was storming back across the living room. "I was supposed to get you that for Christmas anyway."

"I just went ahead and bought it myself." Matt kneeled down and picked the DS back up, inspecting it for any damages. No knicks or scratches, surprisingly. Good. "You wouldn't know what to look for."

Mello narrowed his eyes, looming over him. "I would so."

Matt looked up at him, smirking, pushing the envelope, always his downfall. "Mel, you mistook the beeping of the oven for sound effects from my DS. They sound totally different."

Mello scoffed and kicked the DS from his hands. "Yeah? How does it sound now? Broken, hopefully."

"Dude!" Matt shoved his leg and cradled his DS, sighing when he saw a fresh scratch on the corner. He babied his DS and stood, turned it off. The message was well received. "Just let me get the brownies from the oven because they're burning. I can smell it."

"Brownies?" Mello moved aside as he walked past. "I thought you were making cake."

Matt waved his hand and, before he could be interrogated, vanished into the kitchen.


	2. Number One

The snow crunched beneath his boots, cramming in between the wedges in his soles, leaving riveted footsteps on the ground behind him. Matt trailed behind him, the smooth soles of his boots defiling the first set of prints, hiding the identity of the wearer. Mello knew that Matt thought the precaution was silly, but he knew better. He had been in a crime syndicate where the mere pattern of someone's breathing could give their identity away, and then they would breathe no more. Although he would never admit it, Mello was still nervous to walk outside of Matt's apartment, the little slice of Heaven that he had landed on and taken over when he fell from his position of influence, of power.

At least Matt hadn't complained about taking a private plane to England. Even while hiding out, Mello still had his connections, his ways, though they were few and far between and he wasn't so certain about accessing them. Though, he would rather kill a traitorous man on a private plane than get arrested for so much as walking into an airport and showing his face.

Even here in England, which was another safe haven of sorts for him, he still kept his hood drawn down low upon his head, his face partially hidden by the fur lining the top. It was high winter in England, with snow blanketing everything and breath turning to fog the moment it left his mouth, a haze that blocked his view momentarily, but Mello was used to being set back, set apart from things and others at a distance. He preferred it that way. At least with the weather the way that it was, he could get away with hiding his face, his identity, though he knew that they were looking for him more in Japan than in England. They didn't know of his ties here.

Or so he hoped. That's what the impromptu trip was all about.

Mello would never forget the day that he blew up the base, the day he almost killed himself, destroyed his body, fought against it but in the end called Matt, the only true friend he had ever had and the only person he knew he could trust. He would never forget stumbling down those stairs, littered with debris, all the way down to the entrance of the building, refusing to allow him to enter and find him like that, so weak, so in pain. He would never forget the way Matt caught him as he almost fell off of the curb, stopped him from trying to ride his motorcycle home to prove himself, would never forget the worried way Matt looked over at him every few seconds in the passenger seat as he rushed home. He would never forget what he did that day, and he would never be able to repay him.

But he knew, however, that leading the police or the Yakuza to his apartment was the worst thing that could happen, and the worst way to work off the insurmountable debt he owed him.

Matt never thought of it that way, as a duty he had performed that needed rewarding. He just knew that his friend was in trouble and came to his rescue. Any real friend would have done it, especially when the two were the only friends the other really had. But Mello did, and he had to discover if there were any tangible ties between them left in the world.

Mello remembered the day he left Wammy's House, remembered it well. L's death had rocked his world, more than when he was left abandoned as a child in front of the gates of the home. He remembered leaving that day, not even a few hours later, with every trace of him destroyed from the files, because that's what happened when a child left Wammy's and that was exactly how he liked it. Anonymous invisibility. He knew that Matt had left shortly after him, though he couldn't have been one hundred percent sure that no trace of Matt was left behind in the orphanage.

And so he would check, and maybe then he could put his troubled mind at ease, if only in this matter.

"It's so cold." Matt's grumbled statement tore Mello from his intense reverie. "I hate being outside. Weather sucks."

"Well, we'll be inside soon enough." Much to Mello's dismay. Being inside of Wammy's House, to use Matt's vernacular, sucked just as much as walking in the snow. In fact, if Mello could make the comparison, they were ridiculously similar. Both places were cold, frigid, despite their nice appearance. The bulk of the children given to the orphanage were able to look past it, were able to enjoy having a new home of sorts, with food and toys and friends, but at the end of the day, it was still an orphanage, a home for the misfit children of England.

The abandoned children of England. Most of the children found themselves there at any age due to the death of their parents, but Mello was different, and so was Matt, and maybe that was why they bonded from the moment they met each other. Mello didn't remember his parents, not their faces, or their voices. He was too young when he plopped down outside of the gates of the orphanage and gripped the bars, the voices of his parents fading until they, like the bodies they belonged to, were gone, repressed, forgotten. He had to cope with the knowledge that this home, these walls that surrounded him, were not the walls of his bedroom, of his parents' flat, though he could not remember it clearly, and his childhood prior to Wammy's blurred in his mind in the midst of confusion, like a thumb print blocking an entire chunk of a picture, background blurred and unintelligible.

Matt had been the other rare, but similar, case. He remembered the first time he saw him, sitting curled up in the corner by himself, playing a handheld game to distract his reeling mind, sniffling and pounding buttons with his fingers, fresh tears still lingering at the corners of his eyes. He had never asked what happened to his parents, didn't need to. He could see from the forlorn look in his eyes, the torn expression ghosting his appearance at all times, that he, too, didn't belong there. He, too, had been abandoned by his parents for whatever reason that was foreign to both of the men, but it was for that reason that the two clung to each other so feverishly even if they wouldn't admit to it, because they were two sides of the same coin.

And because of that duality that existed between them, lingering in the air so thick that it was almost tangible, Mello knew that Matt was feeling it, too. That feeling of nervousness and apprehension that pulsed through his body echoed within Matt's, but returning to Wammy's had to be done. Matt's safety depended on the undeniable link between them being unknown.

"In and out, right, Mel?" Matt spoke empty words that fell on deaf ears, but the meaning was muted, so he didn't mind. "Hey, do you think Roger will give the kids the cookies?"

The damned cookies. Mello remembered them, even months later, not because Matt made a mess of the kitchen, not because he had forced Mello to watch an animated movie, but because, despite everything, they were the best cookies he had ever tasted in his life. How Matt had managed to put Armageddon in a dish and pop it in the oven only to have it come out spectacular was beyond him. But with a crispy outside and a gooey chocolate inside, Mello couldn't complain, and where there were two tins full of cookies in Matt's hands, there were three more back home for him.

"Why wouldn't he give the kids the cookies?" Mello spared a glance over his shoulder, watching the snow blanketing the tops of the tins. "Even the Grinch won't deny them sweets. Though, I don't know why you bothered."

Mello knew damn well why he bothered. Deep down, Matt had something he didn't when it came to Wammy's. There was a small level, maybe even just a smidgen, of appreciation for the services they had provided him. Perhaps Mello lacked it because Matt had never been in the running to be L's successor. He was able to live without the weight of the pressure that it caused sitting on his chest at all hours throughout the day and night. Perhaps that was why he felt he had to give something back to them, even if it was only to the children.

Hell, Roger wasn't even that bad. The entire experience, even the bulk of Mello's life so far, put a bad taste in his mouth that he couldn't get rid of no matter how much he swished.

The orphanage was in the same shape they had left it, large and glorious even when covered in snow, though the barred gates reminded Mello that he often thought it a prison. He pushed through the gates and walked to the front door with Matt, the other trailing behind him and covering his tracks with a murmur of 'Paranoid,' and the few children that played outside in the snow fell silent and watched as the apparent strangers knocked.

When Roger answered, just as old as ever, though seeming not to have aged since the day Mello left, his eyebrows raised and he opened his mouth, voice gearing up for his name. But Mello shook his head and raised his hand to stop him, to silence him, as if the sound of his name would echo through the hills and cause an avalanche of authority.

"A favor, nothing more, nothing less."

Roger shut his mouth, though nodded and stepped out of the way. Mello walked in, hands in his pockets, head down, with Matt behind. He shook the snow off of him and followed Roger to his office, footsteps echoing down the hallway that never seemed to end. Mello glanced over at a little girl playing on the ground as he passed, brushing the hair of a doll. She looked up at him as he walked back, and from the angle, saw his scarring. She gasped and covered her mouth, fear in her eyes.

The monster of the orphanage had returned in the massacred flesh, just with a younger, different cast of children in its possession. He looked away, staring out the window as they walked instead, and Matt balanced the tins against his chest with one hand, the other reaching out to pat Mello's shoulder. If it hadn't been so reassuring and comforting in that moment, he might have swatted it away.

Roger lead them into his office and sat in his chair, hands crossed on the desk. "What can I do for you?" He grimaced when Mello kicked the door shut with his foot, eliciting a slam. "You're going to frighten the children."

"Too late for that." Mello crossed his arms over his chest, eyes trained on the carpet, anchoring his head down. "He brought food for the kids. Money you don't have to spend, right? He'll put them in the kitchen."

As if on cue, Matt opened the door and left, shutting it behind him. Even when asking for a favor, Mello still ran the show. He didn't want Matt in the room for their discussion, wouldn't have taken him along at all if he wasn't so afraid something was going to happen to him if left in the apartment by himself.

"I just need you to check something." Mello spoke with a deliberate weight on each word, heavy, as heavy as the gun hidden on his person, as the matches tucked away if Roger refused. He came prepared, always prepared. "You just have to check the file, one, two, three. So let's make it easy."

"Your file is empty." Roger leaned against the desk, his gaze burning into Mello, trying to make him look up. "It doesn't exist anymore. We took care of that when you left, remember? It's like you were never here."

"I'm fully aware." Now that he had his picture back from Near, anyway. Mello's voice was enough of an indication of the wicked sneer on his face, the disdain in his eyes, tone pointing all of the blame on Roger for the grubby little fingerprints the other left on his personal possession. "I'm not asking about me. I'm asking about him."

"Him? Oh, M-"

"Him. Yes. I'm asking about him."

"His file is also empty." Roger opened his hands, palms outwards, as if showing nothing up his sleeve during a magic trick. "It was cleared when he left, just like yours."

"So there are no traces that we ever knew the other existed." Mello looked up, then, eyes hard and locked on Roger's, scanning them for the truth. "That is what you're telling me. Correct?"

"Correct." Roger's brow furrowed, and when he asked the next question, Mello knew it had nothing to do with his scar. "Mello, what _happened_ to you?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with. I'm not in your possession anymore." Mello turned on his heel and started for the door. "If anything happens to him due to your negligence, if his picture ends up in the hands of another, I promise you'll regret it."

Mello left the office and shut the door behind him. One problem solved, at least. He dipped his head low and walked off for the kitchen, but when he found it, panic replaced his relief. One cookie tin sat atop the counter while another was on the floor, the treats crumbled against the ground. Worse, Matt was nowhere in sight. He looked around for any trace of him and rushed out of the kitchen. A small boy sat playing against the wall, and he was unfortunate enough to receive his wrath.

"You, boy." Mello loomed over him and glared down his nose, not amused and not playing nice. "The man who brought the cookies. Where is he?"

The young child looked up and blinked twice, but said nothing at first. Then he tilted his head. "What?"

"Don't you bullshit me." Mello gritted his teeth, trying to keep himself calm. "The man who brought you the cookies. Where did he go?"

"I don't know who you're talking about, mister."

Mello almost reached for his gun, but he stopped himself, gripped the wall for support as he exhaled, long and slow. He looked insane, accosting a small boy in a hallway as only Mello could, and certainly felt like he was losing his mind. He darted off down the hallway in search of him. One scan of the snow outside showed no footsteps, and the children didn't seem frazzled, so he had to be in the home somewhere. Mello ran up and down stairs, in and out of rooms, and when he finally found Matt, he was leaning against the doorframe of a bedroom.

Mello stormed down the hall and growled, grabbing Matt by the shoulders and shaking him before he could stop himself. "What the hell did you think you were doing!?"

"What?" Matt stumbled slightly and grabbed Mello's hands. "What do you mean?"

"I came out of the office and you were gone." Mello seethed, felt as if his heart was going to explode in his chest, and proceeded to scold Matt as though he was a child. "Don't you ever do that to me again."

But in the face of a panicked Mello, Matt only smirked and nudged him. "Were you worried about me?"

Kill him. Mello was going to kill him.

Mello exhaled, long and slow, an unsuccessful method of trying to calm himself. He let Matt go and, fingers restless and flexing, buried his hands in the pockets of his coat.

"You were worried about me." Matt nudged him again, but when Mello tensed, he leaned back against the doorframe and left him alone. "Don't worry, I just got bored waiting for you and came upstairs to see."

To see?

Mello turned his gaze into the bedroom and it hit him like a sack of bricks. Even with new posters on the wall, with new sheets on the bed, the branches scratching up against the window was a dead giveaway.

Matt smiled, the action a little sheepish, and scratched behind his head. "I wanted to see if it was like I remembered."

How could it be forgotten? Even dressed up with another child's interests, Mello's old bedroom was impossible to confuse. He remembered how big he thought the room was when he was little, now small in comparison to his new experiences. He remembered how the bedding always smelled of fresh cotton, how comforting the carpet was on a cold winter morning. He remembered sitting at the desk and studying Japanese, how hard it was for him to enunciate with an English accent, how easy it came to Matt through example from his video games. But more than anything no longer in the room, he remembered the tree, how frightening it was to him as a young boy. It used to scratch at the window, claw at it on windy, stormy nights, and the shadow plastered itself against the wall like a giant, wicked hand waiting to snatch him up in his sleep, if he dared to even shut his eyes.

He remembered many a night when he would flee from his bed and seek out Matt, always up and playing a game under his blankets. He remembered many a night when Matt's frequent childhood nightmares drove him into Mello's room, and he didn't mind, for he had comfort from the evil tree. He remembered that as the boys grew, the room grew, too. He remembered their first argument, a product of Mello's frustration at Near that sent Matt running down the hall for his own bedroom, still sensitive as a boy, not yet desensitized to life by the escapism of video games. He remembered how the walls became a cage that day, locking Mello into place within his anger. He remembered, though, how the walls seemed to dissolve into clouds as he and Matt played together in harmony, keeping them happy and giddy together in the bedroom.

But more than anything, Mello remembered when the walls began to keep secrets. He had never forgotten that day, often still thought about it. Mello hadn't wanted to play, extremely upset at yet another second place score on a test, right behind Near by a few points. All Mello wanted to do was crawl under the blankets and disappear, but Matt didn't want to abandon him as they had been abandoned, and so he sat at the desk and watched the lump under the covers until Mello finally gave him an exasperated, "I'm tired of being Number Two!"

And that was when Matt said it, the thing that changed the dynamic of their relationship forever, so innocent and childlike, but it was something that glued the two of them together even years later.

Matt had smiled, small and sheepish, and said, "You'll always be Number One to me."

Mello remembered the overwhelming emotion the simple words infused in him, remembered how he had launched himself across the room to close the distance between them. He remembered that that was the first time he had ever kissed him, felt the undeniable electricity pass between their lips at the connection, how it was only the first of many kisses to follow, of many touches, many desires traded as they grew older and matured, wanted, all of their actions hidden and protected by the secretive walls of the bedroom.

He remembered it all, golden and glorious in his mind, and he found himself tracing his tongue over his lower lip before he could stop himself. He shook his head, shaking it off, and turned, his back to Matt, unable to face him, trying to keep himself composed in the overflow of memories.

"We should go. I did what I came here to do." Mello rolled his shoulders, a failed attempt to relax, and walked down the hall. "Sorry to make you come on a short trip, but we can't stay."

"I know, I know." Matt followed after him. "Back on the plane?"

He hated flying unless it was in a simulated game and Mello knew it. But what was he supposed to do? Flying in a plane of their own, on a plane smaller than a regular airline's, they hit much more turbulence, and while Mello didn't like it, Matt loathed it.

"Back on the plane." Mello smirked, trying to lighten the mood. "Hell, since you love flying so much, we should make our own airline so you can fly to England whenever you want, turbulence and all."

"Oh, and what would we call it, Mello Air?" Matt quirked a brow and trotted up behind him, matching his stride. "Fully equipped with private jets?"

"You know it." Mello looked over his shoulder. "It'll be the best damn airline this world has ever seen."

"Well, duh, you'd be running it." Matt stepped on the back of Mello's shoe, teasing. "When this is all over, we'll travel around on Mello Air. It'll be ridiculous."

All over. Right.

Mello turned his head and grimaced just barely at the words, at the unneeded reminder that they might not come out of this unscathed. Mello didn't care about himself, really, only Matt. For a moment, he thought to vanish from the apartment and cut Matt out of his operation, but all he could come up with was a weak chuckle and a, "Maybe you should find another airline, Matt, one without all this turbulence."

"Oh, so I should run off and find another one, just because there's some turbulence?" Matt played along, not realized the seriousness in Mello's words, the somberness behind them. "I don't care if there's turbulence, Mel. You'll always be Number One to me."

Mello stopped dead in his tracks, unmoving as Matt bumped into him. The gamer stumbled and caught himself, then rubbed his head as Mello turned around and stared holes into his face.

"What?"

Before he could stop himself, could realize what he was doing, Mello kissed him. He didn't care that he was in the middle of a hallway. He didn't care if there were children running around just a few rooms away, or even if Roger walked by in that moment. Hell, if Kira walked by in that moment, Mello might have told him to go fuck himself and stop interrupting. At those words, those words which held so much more meaning than Matt could have ever meant, offhanded and comical, Mello needed to kiss him, even if just once, even if he never did again, never talked about it like they didn't talk about their teenage years, before the strong current of emotion that rushed through him threatened to burst out of him.

So he put it into Matt, Matt who stared at him in shock, eyes a little wide, kissed lips parted just barely, breathless and speechless. He was a strange mix of pale and pink at the same time, unable to find a proper in between, but in that moment, Mello didn't see the shock or confusion. All he saw was Matt, golden and glorious.

And then, after the end of the stark ordeal the day had presented, it was Mello's turn to smirk. "I wanted to see if it was like I remembered."


	3. A Mello Christmas

Author's Note: Hi, guys! I'm going to speak on behalf of myself and Artemis to address a few things (assuming that Artemis's readers come and look at my stories, which is a shot in the dark, but...XD). First of all, we would just like to thank you guys for reading and enjoying our stories. We're really stoked that people actually take time out of their day to read, let alone review, so we just want to say thanks. I tried to figure out how to personally reply to reviews saying thanks, but alas, for two twenty-something-year-olds, we are surprisingly slow when it comes to technology (well, I am. Artemis is better than me by a long shot, but I just didn't want to creep anyone out by sending them a 'thank you' message, though I suppose this may be more creepy, huh?).

Second of all, we would both also like to use this chance to apologize for the lack of updates this past week! Obviously, we've all been busy with the holiday season, no matter what vein it comes in. Artemis, however, is actually in the process of moving out of her apartment, so she's sitting on her bed, the only thing in her apartment right now other than her computer, in order to talk to me like a trooper (ah, the Artemis to my Apollo, the Antony to my Cleopatra). I've just been extremely busy, so I don't have a rocking excuse like she does.

So we both have different methods of dealing with the lack of updates! For Artemis, she apologizes for the delay and will have something up for everyone within the week, once she's settled in elsewhere. Me? I also apologize for the delay, and I'm going to write a Christmas-themed chapter for everyone, as you'll see below. Nothing says Christmas like Mello and Matt bickering on a holiday, right?

Again, thanks for reading our stories and enjoying them, and sorry for the delay!

- Apollo

"Mello, it's too big."

"I already told you it would be. You never listen to me."

"Well, aren't you proud of yourself?"

"Damn right I am. I told you it was going to be too big, and I was right."

"It's not even a big deal."

"How the hell do you figure?"

"It's just a tight squeeze. You'll just have to shove it in."

"I'm not just going to shove it in, Matt."

"Fine. Then you get on the bottom. I'll do the shoving."

"Ha! Like I'm going to be on the bottom. I can't trust you on top."

"Why not? I can do it just as good as you can!"

"Oh, please. You wouldn't even know what to do with it. Now get ready."

"A-Ah! Mel, you're hurting me!"

"Then move with me!" Mello stopped on the staircase, one foot on the top of the landing and the other on a stair, his quick, annoyed huffs turning into fog in the frigid winter air. He looked over his shoulder down the stairs, almost whacking himself in the face on a branch in the process. Matt stood on a single stair, shaking his hands out in the icy breeze, his cheeks and nose tinged pink. The base of a Christmas tree rested down by his feet, his lower body partially concealed by the branches.

"You have to be careful when you pull like that. I can feel the wood through my gloves."

"Then pick it up and walk with me." Mello spoke through gritted teeth. It was bad enough that he had to keep stopping at all. Mello hadn't even wanted a damn tree, knew it would be too big for the small apartment that they shared, but the effect that this time of year had on Matt was something that Mello had never understood, and would probably never understand. On any other day, it was nearly impossible to get Matt to pull his attention away from his game to even scoot over on the couch, let alone get him up and moving about the apartment. But once the clock started ticking towards Christmas, he slowly but surely got into the swing of holiday routines, until he roped Mello into some harebrained scheme like this one, and had half of a Christmas tree poking into the apartment at an odd angle, with the two of them shivering outside of their apartment on the staircase and wondering just how the hell they were going to get back inside.

"I _was_ walking with you. You stopped."

"I stopped because I can't get inside of the apartment, Matt." Mello kept a tight grip on the tree, because in that moment, he was tempted to push Matt down the stairs and say to hell with it. "So I just need to angle it better, and then we can get it inside."

Matt shook his head, but picked the tree back up nevertheless. Mello watched the shopping bags dangling from his elbow for a moment before he turned his gaze back to the doorway and narrowed his eyes. After a few more long, cold minutes of shifting, shoving, grunting, and telling Matt to shut up before Mello shut him up, the irritated blond finally managed to work the tree into the small apartment and get it into the living room. When all was said and done, the tree fit into the stand, but the top was bent down against the ceiling.

"Well, that looks ridiculous."

"It's cute." Matt flicked the lighter open and lit the end of his cigarette, then exhaled slowly. "Now we just need to decorate it, and then we'll have an apartment like normal people."

Mello plopped onto the couch and leaned back into its cushions, shutting his eyes for a moment. Matt had rocked him out of bed that Christmas Eve morning, and they had been running ever since, much to Mello's dismay. It wasn't even the visit to the packed mall or the walk home with the Christmas tree that bothered him. It was that being seen outside of the apartment with Matt made him nervous. He couldn't run the risk of being recognized, of being seen with someone who would be viewed as a weakness, as a throwaway in a negotiation, to another. But Matt hadn't cared, had threatened to just leave on his own, and while that was a safer bet in the grand scheme of things, Mello couldn't shake the displeasure at the idea of letting him wander around for hours by himself.

And it had been hours, almost an entire day spent, in fact. This was why Mello never bothered with Christmas, with any holiday, really. It was troublesome, it was expensive, and more than anything, it was a time to mark what one didn't have. On any other day of the week, Mello would have gone about his day normally with no thought on where he was, how he was living, how he was affecting the people around him. But there was something about Christmas, about the season, that reminded him every day that while most normal Japanese people were celebrating what was the biggest date night in the country, he was forcing Matt to hide out in his apartment and only go out for necessities. Matt said he didn't mind, that he didn't really leave his apartment anyway. But Matt had always been like that. He had always been a loner with the exception of Mello, but that was okay, because Mello could say the same about him.

Which was why, when Matt brought out a box filled up with ornaments for the tree, Mello did his best not to protest.

"Let's put up the lights and stuff first."

"Do we have lights?"

Matt shrugged. "Dunno. We do have these, though."

Mello walked over and opened the box. The cardboard scraped against itself in a way that made his teeth hurt, made him almost cringe, but his attention was quickly captured by the items inside of the box. Hardly any of the ornaments were store-bought, and almost all of them were handmade and recognizable. The bulk of them were childish concoctions made out of old glue and popsicle sticks, but he could remember that when he and Matt had made them as children, it felt as though they were constructing a castle.

Mello picked up a crooked snowflake and quirked a brow. "You kept these?"

"Mm?" Matt looked up from the floor, on his haunches with a paper snowman in his hands. "Well, yeah. When I left, I took what was mine. And when you left without the ornaments, they became mine."

Mello watched as his eyes trailed down, trailed over the shiny stickers used for coal buttons. His leaving had always been a sensitive topic, was still a wound that refused to fully heal. But Mello needed to find his own way, and he couldn't have done what he needed to if Matt had been by his side. It wasn't that he was a nuisance or a burden. On the contrary, outside of being Mello's best and only friend, he was a skilled and excellent hacker. But as much as Mello didn't regret what he had done to get here, crashing in Matt's apartment to avoid detection from the authorities, and as much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't sure if he would have been able to go through with it if Matt had been at his side, his anchor, his conscience.

He didn't want to disappoint him. More than anything, he didn't want to let him down again.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Mello tried to force a smile, but his lips quivered and he looked like he was trying on a deranged smirk instead. "Let's get the tree decorated, right?"

"Sure." Matt's spirit had dampened, but he stood with the box regardless. The two of them circled the tree until it was fully dressed in childish ornaments, and they stepped back to examine their work. Matt scratched behind his head, a frown still lingering on his face, and looked down.

"Looks good." Mello wasn't even looking at the tree. He was watching Matt's expression, hands in his pockets, and was becoming more irrationally annoyed by the second. "So why are you sad?"

"I'm not sad." Matt shook his head and looked back up. "I was just remembering old times, was all."

"Well, don't think about that shit." Mello crossed his arms, a bit uncomfortable, knowing what he was thinking about. "The past is the past for a reason."

"I know. I was just thinking about how all of our ornaments come in pairs, except for the first Christmas you were gone." Matt smirked, trying to play it off, Mello knew. "I stopped making ornaments after that, you know. You killed my Christmas spirit."

"What can I say? I'm a murderer." Mello shifted and looked down, his breath a little shallow, trying to hold down the sudden anger burning up inside of him. He hated that he felt blamed for leaving, for doing what he needed to do. It hadn't all been for naught. They were making great strides in the Kira case, and he was making great strides against Near. But more than anything, he hated that he knew it wasn't Matt blaming him for leaving, or for dragging him into the Kira mess in the first place when all he wanted to do was play video games. Mello knew he was blaming himself, guilt-ridden ever since he saw his face again, but instead of handling it the way he should have, he just got angrier at Matt before he could help himself. "I don't even understand why you freak out about Christmas anyway."

"I don't freak out." Matt shoved his hands into his pockets and swayed on his feet, characteristic in his restlessness, uncharacteristic in how Mello knew his words were getting to him. "I just wanted to do something nice for Christmas."

"What the hell difference does it make?" Mello ignored the lackluster tone in the other's voice, ignored the lone candy cane ornament that dangled from a nearby branch, the year of his leaving penned into the paper, taunting. "If Kira isn't stopped, there won't even be a Christmas, and then you won't have to worry about fitting a stupid tree into your tiny apartment because we'll all be dead."

Matt pursed his lips and stared into Mello's eyes, gaze hard and hurt, concealed partially by long lashes. "Well, I'm sorry that I wanted to spend Christmas with you before that happens."

Mello didn't have a chance to say anything in response. Matt tucked his hands into his pockets and walked off down the hall, shouldered his door open, and then kicked it shut behind him. Mello sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of how to even begin to articulate what he meant to say. Perhaps that was why he always seemed to fall short of Near when it came to debating.

Mello had always been terrible at explaining things. He had always been terrible at explaining _himself_.

Things would have been so much easier if Matt didn't matter. Mello was used to getting rid of his problems, executing whatever it was that was causing him to feel emotion. But he couldn't kill Matt, wasn't even sure the emotions would stop whirling around if he did. The problem was that he didn't even have the slightest clue as to how to make the other feel better. Mello didn't know the first thing about Christmas, and while Matt handled most of the holiday preparations year round, Mello had a hunch that he didn't really know what he was talking about either. It was through no fault of their own, Mello was convinced. It wasn't their fault that they were clueless orphans. After all, they hadn't abandoned themselves.

But Mello had abandoned Matt whether it was intentional or not all those years ago, and he was doing it again.

He didn't know how to apologize, to make it up to him, to make things right. He thought to try and finish the Christmas chores on his own, but then remembered that he was no baker by any stretch of the imagination, and would just make a mess out of the kitchen if he tried. He thought to try and make another ornament to try and match Matt's, but that would just be replacing a spot left unfilled instead of correcting the problem. He thought to just go to his room and apologize, but Mello didn't have words for that. He had always been terrible at admitting his faults, at vocalizing his wrongs. He would have to tell him he was sorry without actually saying it.

Which brought him to the last place he wanted to be on the evening of Christmas Eve: the mall. People milled about within the building, crammed together like sardines. Families, couples, and loners alike shouldered their way through the crowds to try and get to their destinations, all without regard for anyone but themselves. As Mello stormed his way through the crowd like a fish going upstream, he wanted nothing more than to kill all of the insignificant people in his path, all inconsiderate and all annoying. They deserved it, and he wanted it, oh, how he wanted it. Merry Christmas to him.

But he fought off the urge and entered the store he spotted from across the mall instead. It was small, cramped, and very packed. Mello walked the walls of the GameStop, eyes trailing along the titles of games, watching as they merged together before his eyes, differentiated only by the colors depicted by the system to which they belonged. He circled the store for something, anything, that looked unfamiliar, but in the end, he concluded that he had seen the games in the apartment before he stormed out into the mess of the walkways once more.

Mello cursed. How the hell did someone manage to have all of the games in a game store? Ridiculous. What was he supposed to get Matt now? Outside of video games and cigarettes, Matt didn't talk to Mello about many other interests. He didn't seem to mind baking, but Mello wasn't about to go out and buy him a muffin tin. It was unnecessary. They were _men_. _Grown-ass men_.

But that was when it caught his eye. Across from the game store, children and parents alike pressed themselves against the window of a shop. Even from a distance, Mello recognized the wiring of cages that glinted in the bright lighting overhead. He crossed the mall and came to loom at the corner of the glass, hands in his pockets, head down, avoiding the eyes of those who cast a glance over him. He gazed into the store, into the cages, and watched as puppies of various breeds and sizes slept, ran about as much as they could, or wagged their tales at those watching.

The women and children crooned and cooed, pointing at the tiny puppies either sleeping or giving them big eyes. They looked even tinier than they were when placed inside of their big cages and sprawled next to toys their size. Mello scanned the cages, looking at all of the puppies yipping and vying for attention. He was about to turn away and give up when another sight caught his attention.

A Chocolate Labrador puppy sat hunched in its cage, eyes down, mouth shut. The cage looked too small for such a dog, already standing up to the middle of the calf despite its young age, and the puppy had to hold its head down to avoid touching the metal bars. None of the adults in the area gave the animal a second look, and when they did, they turned in favor of the tiny puppies they could fit in their purses.

Mello buried his hands into his pockets and, before he realized what he was doing, walked into the store. In a way, he saw himself in the animal, abandoned by someone only to be unwanted by the others who came into his path. He saw Matt in the puppy as well, and knew that the man wouldn't be angered by his seemingly rash decision to buy the animal on the spot. Without sparing any words besides those that were necessary, Mello clipped the collar around the dog's neck, attached the leash to it, and walked out of the store.

"I don't know what we're going to name you." Mello looked down at the dog as he walked back to the apartment, the puppy's tongue flopped out of its mouth, breath making huge gusts of fog as he trotted. Mello smiled at the animal's sudden happiness at having found an owner, but wiped the expression off of his face as people passed. He watched as snowflakes littered the animal's fur and eyelashes, a frown etching its way into his features, and scooped down to pick the animal up. He zippered the puppy inside of his coat and trotted up the stairs to the apartment, unlocking the door and shutting it behind him with a quick hand. The poor thing was shivering.

Mello heard Matt before he saw him. The melodic battle music came to a stop when the other shut his DS, and the heavy footfalls alerted him of his presence before he entered the kitchen, lips tugged into a deep frown, worry in his eyes.

"Where did you go?" Matt pouted, but his look was exchanged for a confused one when he spotted the lump underneath Mello's coat. "Mel, what did you do?"

"Why do you always assume that I did something bad?" Mello unzipped his jacket, eyes on Matt's instead of the dog's, and watched as the other's eyes widened, then lit up. "He was just cold."

Matt tried to look uninterested, unimpressed, but he ended up smiling and petting the dog, cooing when his fingers were licked. "Where did you get him?"

"The mall." Mello handed the puppy over, fighting off a smile as Matt snuggled the animal, who was just as pleased to be in his arms. "He needs a name, you know."

"Coco." The answer was immediate, succinct, and Matt kissed the happy puppy on the top of the head a moment later. "If that's okay with you."

"It's your dog."

"It's _our _dog." Matt swayed with the animal, petting his soft fur, before he turned his gaze back to Mello and bit his lip. "Coco, because he's a chocolate lab, and you like chocolate. Is that okay?"

Mello's lips twitched as he tried to fight off the smile that was working its way onto his face. He just couldn't say no to Matt sometimes, and when he was beaming and snuggling a puppy, it became even harder. In that moment, with his best friend cuddling a dog in the middle of the kitchen, he wasn't grossed out or annoyed. He was proud, somehow, in a way that he wasn't quite sure of yet.

"Of course it's okay. I don't care what we name him." Mello reached out and scratched behind his ears. "Coco is fine."

"Hey, what's the occasion?" Matt tilted his head. "You don't usually go out and buy puppies on a daily basis."

Mello looked up, meeting his gaze, so close that he could feel his breath. He bored into his eyes, silent, lips drawn together while the rest of him was immobile. He didn't blink, barely even breathed, hoping that his message would be understood. Matt watched him back, and then he smiled, the silent acceptance to his unspoken apology.

"Merry Christmas, Matt."

Matt shifted the puppy to his other arm and leaned forward, capturing Mello's lips, and before the blond even had a chance to realize what was happening, Matt pulled back and turned to leave the kitchen. The blond, for once in his life, was speechless through no fault of his own, and he stared at Matt's back as if his gaze alone could bring him back and make him explain himself. Sure enough, Matt paused in the doorway and pointed upwards. Mello looked up, and when he saw a chunk of greenery hanging from the ceiling, he looked back down and found Matt smirking.

"Sorry, Mel. Mistletoe. It's the rules." Matt winked. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
